Irish folk singer Me Auld Flower has lived in San Diego on and off for many years, going back and forth from his home in County Galway, Ireland. In April 2020, he debuted a new track called "An Apparition in Connemara."
His summer 2020 single "Get Out of California" and its accompanying video coincided with the release of a limited edition CD The Vaults of Consciousness. The song was written after coming home to Ireland from San Diego.
"All the day from beach to beach
Wondering if any will be safe to sleep
The devil dwells in the desert deep
They got Jesus crawling, walking, running, coming in from the sea...
Came the first bang, don't say we didn't warn you
Came the next bang, get out of California
Every mortal through the portal had come in peace"
"I'd met a lot of dodgy characters, got myself into some strange situations, and my life had begun to spiral a little bit," he says. "My relationship at the time had exploded spectacularly and I ended up holed up in a rural country house for my own good with a stray cat I'd just met. Each of us minding the other."
"I wrote the song on a long summer's evening, sitting in the upstairs window looking out on the back garden and adjoining churchyard. The sun was setting, the trees were full of birdsong, and the cat, who usually turned tail whenever I picked up the guitar, sat quietly on the windowsill in a kind of unspoken solidarity. It was a really productive and beautiful time in my life during which I wrote most of the album. A potent remedy to what had passed."